As a young man John Richards spent his days reading philosophy and political history. He was fascinated by philosophers and authors like John Rawls, Ayn Rand, Frederick Nietzsche, Terry Goodkind and Aristotle. He had long dreamed of taking a few like minded friends and starting his own country much the way that John Galt did in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Often he would say to his friends, "Dudes, I think we should like, just do it man... Let's like, go all John Galt and leave this place to the looters!"

In the summer of 2007 something amazing happened to John Richards. As he was cashing his monthly college check from his parents he decided to buy a lottery ticket. The lottery was something John Richards always ranted against. Calling it a tax on people who are bad at math. Yet when he saw that the jack pot had climbed well above the $100 million mark he felt the uncontrollable urge to spend a dollar on that ticket. Later that night he went to the lottery web site and looked at the winning numbers. With a laugh he realized that he didn't get even one number. Just as he was about to close out his browser he caught something out of the corner of his eye. The date... He just looked at last weeks winning numbers. He quickly refreshed the page and as if by magic the numbers from his ticket stared him in the face.

John's heart pounded, did he dare trust to tell anyone? No, his room mates would insist he spend the money wildly. His parents would expect him to invest nearly all of it after providing them with a nice life. His philosophy friends might just be like his room mates. John decided to be cool and get in touch with an old classmate who had recently finished up his tax law degree.

The next week went by in a blur. The lottery people insisted on a public appearance to announce his winning but John refused. He asked for his money to be given up front which meant that he was only paid 75% of the actual jackpot. Still, it ended up being over 125 million dollars. Enough money for John to do just about anything he wanted. The only catch was that the US government decided that John needed to give them half of his winnings. John was furious. No, this would not work. The US government had not offered to pay half of his lottery ticket! John of course conveniently forgot that the money he used was from his parents, but that was besides the point.

Who is John Galt? The thought bounced around his head as he fumed about the taxes he would have to pay. It was then that an old friend called him out of the blue. "Hey John! It's your old friend Mike, how you doing? Say, I know this is kind of a random call, but would you be interested in investing in a science project? It's pretty cool, literally. We found an old Soviet scientific station in Antarctica that is up for sale on eBay. We plan to start our own biodome project down there. We are going to see if it's possible to colonize hostile environments. You know, make our own little Atlas Shrugged."

John laughed out loud and hard. He knew what must be done.

Less than a month later a small group of hand picked entrepreneurs and scientists left the US forever and started the colony of Reachwindaria. It is said that the best and the brightest turn up missing from time to time with the only clue left behind a few people having remembered them asking, "Who is John Richards?"